Conventional showers and similar water tight enclosures conventionally are built by first burying a drainage system that communicates with the floor of the shower or other enclosure or surface to be drained of water or other liquid when in use. Similar problems exist with the communication of a drain with a finished floor or patio and also with the communication of ducts from air conditioning and the like with finished wall and floor surfaces.
The problem with drain and duct alignment with finished surfaces continues to be vexing and in the case of new construction is generally left to the last person working on the project who is in charge of finishing out the final surface and mating it to the underlying surface and drain.
During construction or remodeling work associated with a home, office building, or any other type of habitable structure, there are many different tradesmen involved from the start of the project to its completion. Typically, when it comes to a project nearing completion, the tile setter is one of the last craftsmen to be involved and the first to be blamed for a poor result. Because the tile setter's expertise is one of the last talents employed, his ability to produce a high quality, finished product, is closely related to the quality work that has been done before him and the adherence to specifications and standards by the workers preceding him.
Generally, after leveling of the construction site has been accomplished, installation of the concrete foundation for the project is the first major evolution. Along with the concrete work, plumbers are involved to ensure that all necessary piping is in place to support plumbing needs for the project. The plumbers must lay out their piping in strict accordance with approved plans in order to facilitate the proper alignment of plumbing fixtures such as drains and faucets that will be installed later on during the course of the project.
Following the layout, concrete work, and initial plumbing installation, the framing crew becomes involved. They are responsible for the development of the basic structure and the partitioning of the rooms, as they will eventually exist in final form. Hand-in-hand with the construction-framing process, the plumbers are once again involved in the layout of necessary internal plumbing in the walls and floors to support the finished fixtures and drains envisioned in the finished project. Additionally, electricians will install all necessary electrical fixtures and wiring to support the structure.
Finally, after all of the basic construction has been completed, including the concrete, plumbing, and electrical work, the finish work begins. Finish work includes putting the ‘finishing touches’ on the completed base project. This may include floor covering installation, placement and hookup of appliances, finish carpentry, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), internal and external painting, and tile work. It is the tile setter, however, may run into the most vexing problem during this phase of the construction.
If the tile setter is creating a custom bathroom shower, for instance, the proper and aesthetic completion of his work inevitably depends from the proper layout of the pre-installed plumbing beneath the shower by his predecessor on the job. The available drain opening in the shower floor must ultimately align with the exposed drain and strainer at the finished surface level, to produce an aesthetically pleasing and functional installation. Given all the tradespeople involved in the construction effort, the available drain opening in the shower floor and the existing plumbing, do not always align properly. While this misalignment is usually very small by measurement standards, a misalignment of a quarter of an inch can be significant during the drain installation and can affect the overall appearance of the finished tile job. Such misalignment has resulted in many wasted hours of a highly skilled tile setter's time in remedying the sins of the plumber and concurrently producing a finished surface such as tile, that is well laid out and aesthetically eye pleasing.
Since accepted industry practice is to leave the solution for any misalignment caused by plumbers or carpenters in earlier construction to the skills of the tile setter, the setter must employ various creative efforts to resolve alignment problems while still making the best use of the tile or other surfacing to be used in the final covering.
Current technology provides for the use of a “trim frame” normally made of stainless steel, which is designed to be installed into an opening cut into a 4¼ inch piece of standard tile. The trim frame is positioned around the drain opening and provides a straight surface for the union of the trim frame and adjacent tiles in order to provide a finished look to the tile/drain interface. The trim frame is the only standard, uniform appliance that is currently manufactured to provide a proper fit-up between the tiled surface and the installed drain piping.
With the tile industry is currently in a growth phase. As a result, consumers are demanding more and better products, making it imperative for manufacturers to seek better methods and techniques to solve industry problems. The lack of available substitutes for the antiquated and inadequate trim frame is an industry problem that to date has been unsolved and has required the use of highly skilled tile setters and surfacing finishers to solve misalignment problems and increased the cost of labor on job sites.
As such, there is a pressing need for an interface device and a method, that will allow a surfacing finish to be more easily aligned with the underlying drain opening in a shower as in ceramic tile or stone. Such a device could also be used in differing embodiments to align drains and/or other conduit type underlying structures such as ventilation ducts and floor drains with underlying infrastructure and yield a smooth, fluid tight, and ascetically pleasing appearance. Such a device should be useable by those less skilled in the finishing trade to accomplish the sometimes daunting task of drain and conduit alignment and thereby decrease labor costs and allow the more seasoned journeymen to use their skills on projects requiring them. Such a device should also be able to be produced on the site by a method which with conventional or specialized tools to yield a functioning device when manufacturing or dye lots or other aesthetic matters require the manufacture of the device from the material being laid at the time.